


I Want You to Fly

by Valmasy



Category: Tarzan (1999), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 05:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4948414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmasy/pseuds/Valmasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve, Bucky, and Sam are on a trek through a jungle when Steve encounters the lost Tony Stark. Torn between his familial responsibilities at home and helping Tony integrate back into civilization, Steve leaves Tony in a hospital’s capable hands and returns home with his friends, but a story never ends that quickly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MountainRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MountainRose/gifts), [Kitty_Kinneas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitty_Kinneas/gifts).



> I want you to fly  
> I want you to grow  
> I like you to get back  
> Whatever you lose~  
> (Paul McCartney - I Want You To Fly)
> 
> ~~
> 
> This was a 'parted' story I did on my blog
> 
> Thanks to Rose for the beta. :)
> 
> First piece of artwork is by zombietonbo  
> Second one is by hello-shellhead

He thinks he had a different name once upon a time.

A long time ago, before the raging heat that shook his little body and left him unable to move until his ‘mother’ found him in the leaves, fire and flames at his back and then fur at his front, and nursed him back to health.

He’s wondered over the years what his name might have been before he responded to specific grunts from the apes around him. He wonders how he knows the word ‘ape’ and can associate it with the friends at his sides. He knows he lost something to that sickness. He lost his entire self, but he thinks he’s doing just fine. His brown hair is long and, even clean, dark enough to blend in with his brothers if he’s careful. He swears he and his mother have the same eyes when they are side by side at the water.

He climbs the trees as fast as his friends. He uses the vines in the jungle to get around as fast as the others. He’s never left behind and he doesn’t allow himself to be left out. He knows he’s pushy, knows he refuses to back down from the ape that leads their group.

He also knows that the only reason he’s still allowed to stay is because he helps them get food. He’s far handier with tools the apes wouldn’t even think of constructing and he tries to think why, but his thoughts begin to hurt and he lets it go.

But there are times when his laughter rings too loudly for him among the calls of his family and he hunches in on himself. He climbs a tall tree, reaches for the top and the sun filtering through the leaves and he stretches for the sky.

At times like these, there is an ache that resides in the pit of his stomach and he finds himself racing through the jungle as fast as he can on the vines. Sometimes he can convince himself he’s flying like the birds and wishes for something he doesn’t remember.

Then one day, there are invaders in their territory. He crouches through branches with his brother, curiosity overwhelming them when they hear noise that sounds like his own when he’s not careful.

There are apes that look like him in a circle, surrounded by crude shelters that a jungle storm will take out on an easy day. His brother tries to grab his leg as he pushes forward, silent in a way these new apes are not. He can’t help himself, intrigued by ones that look like him and trying to understand what they’re doing.

There is a dark ape stretching back and forth as a light ape bares his teeth at him and makes more noise that sounds like him. There’s another ape that comes out of one of the shelters repeating ‘SteveSteveSteve’ and he reaches for his throat, tries to mimic the sound, but it comes out like the angry water over rocks and he thins his mouth out for fear of being discovered.

The light ape is bigger than the others so he figures he must be the leader. He doesn’t realize how entranced he’s gotten until he snaps the branch in his hand and all three of them startle and turn to face him. He’s already shooting back into the thickness of the jungle, his brother making disgruntled noises at him as they run.

~~~

“What the hell was that?” Sam asks and will never admit, even under threat of pain, that he inched behind Steve for a brief moment. Steve shoots him a knowing look and walks over to the fire to throw another log into the flames.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere in a goddamn jungle,” Bucky replies, hands on his hips. “I’m sure it was any number of things ready to eat us. Why can’t you ever choose somewhere sane for our ‘get-away-weekends’?”

Steve snorts, grinning innocently up at his friends as Sam mirrors Bucky’s finger quotes and settles in front of the fire, muttering about mosquitoes.

“It’s character building, Buck. You didn’t hear me complaining about the strip club in Vegas.”

“First, this isn’t character building. This is the backend of a death forest. Second, no one complains about the strip clubs in Vegas, certainly not you. You were the first one to shove a twenty at Candy-what’s-her-name’s g-string.”

“Oh man, that was a good time,” Sam sighs wistfully.

“Her name is Rebecca and she just passed her Bar exam,” Steve defends, flushing a bit.

“Oh. My. God!” Bucky throws his hands up then points a finger at Steve. “Of course you would. All I’m going to say is that if I get mauled by a lion out here, I’m coming back to haunt your pasty, Irish ass.”

“I’ll make sure to keep it extra pasty for you,” Steve replies smoothly and Sam snickers as Bucky grumbles and starts digging through the pack for food.

A little while later, Steve wanders out a bit into the trees with a flashlight to relieve himself. He can’t see the stars through the trees, but he imagines they’re absolutely breathtaking this far from Bucky’s decent civilization.

He runs a hand over a nearby tree and closes his eyes to just breathe in the peaceful sounds of the jungle night. He’s eager to discover as many of the animals there as he can and draw them in their natural habitat. He reopens his eyes and watches his fingers pick absently at the smooth bark under his hand when leaves rustle above him.

He tries not to give into the nervous, knee-jerk reaction of panic, zipping up his pants and stumbling back a bit as the flashlight is immediately aimed towards the noise. The rustle has already stopped, the tree still; Steve swears he can see something in the branches above him but the leaves are too dense for the light to reach fully.

He tries to remind himself that the ranger said this area is relatively safe as long as they stick to the areas she marked on their map. It’s harder to keep that in mind when it’s dark and he’s away from Sam and Buck and there’s something watching him. He feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up and he steps backward again, slowly and unsteadily.

That 'something' moves, shadows shifting around it as it follows in the cover of leaves, but Steve can now swear he saw eyes and…skin? Skin? There’s an angry call of an animal in the distance and Steve can’t help it, he turns tail and hikes it quickly back to the camp.

~~~

He feels disappointment when the ape runs off. He hadn’t meant to frighten him, just wanted a closer look. He can’t figure out the weird fur covering their bodies and looks down at his own bare body. He’s not as furry as his brothers, but his fur looks more like theirs than these new apes. Maybe they aren’t as similar as he’d first thought. The light ape has something covering his vulnerable parts, but from what he could see in the dark, it looks a lot like his own. Not like his family’s.

But why cover it? It seems silly. He doesn’t have a problem with his uncovered, doesn’t even know how to cover and didn’t ever think about it. He wants to know why they cover theirs and he wants to feel the difference in their furs.

There are so many things swarming through him now that he wants to know and so he follows the light ape back to his circle, back to the others that still seem angry but laugh, he knows that sound, as the light ape makes noises while flapping his arms quickly.

The ape looks like one of the young that play in the grass and dried leaves and he bounces a little on his branch in delight at the sight. He crawls closer when the three enter their shelters after knocking dirt into their flames. He waits a moment then drops down onto the ground, edging near the glowing rocks and eyeing them warily.

He doesn’t trust the heat. It scares him, makes him feel sick, so he keeps a wide berth and carefully balances on his fists before sliding closer to the tent the light ape is inside.

His stomach feels like there are birds in it, flapping madly to get out. He knows better than to bother the silverbacks, the leaders. They’re stronger, faster and more violent. They’ll protect their own. If he gets caught by this ape, he’ll be killed, but he can’t help it. He needs to see more, needs to know more.

Now if only he could figure out how to sneak into the shelter.

~~~

The shelter is quiet when he works his way under the edge of it. The light ape is lying down, facing away from him, and he hesitates in place. Rocking on his feet, he looks around the shelter. It’s smaller than he thinks a silverback should have, definitely smaller than his own leader has.

There are more of those strange rocks that hold things in here and he reaches out a long-fingered hand to grasp at the vine attached to one of them. It makes a soft scraping sound as he pulls it closer and he stills, watching the light ape for movement. When nothing happens, he leans forward and picks at what’s inside.

He freezes when he finds more of that strange fur. This silverback is stealing fur. He wonders if that’s why the three are here, to claim his leader’s territory and take his fur as a sign. His throat constricts and he pushes the squishy rock away to move closer to the sleeping ape.

The ape’s eyes are closed and his breathing is steady, slow, and his face is pale and without fur. He frowns. He’s never seen any pack have an ape this light. He wants to know how this one became the leader. He certainly looks strong, but a face without fur is strange and unwelcome in his circle.

He learned that the hard way until his fur began to grow. His fur now covers the scar across his mouth where his leader punished him with a rock.

The ape sighs heavily in his sleep and starts to turn. He backpedals quickly away from the leader, tripping over the vine and furs and landing on his ass. He scrambles up, tangled in the vine, and makes a noise of distress without meaning to.

The light ape jerks upward, blinking blearily and he panics again, tugging at the vine then giving it up for a lost cause. He’ll drag it, he’s had worse. The light ape starts to shout as he bolts to the edge of the shelter, the squishy thing of furs bumping along after him.

The other two apes are calling back and he’s terrified now. He can’t get caught. They’ll take his fur too. He feels resistance as the light ape catches at the furs, but he tears free, diving under the edge of the shelter and loping as fast as he can towards the closest trees. He can see the flashes of light waving wildly around and the apes are still shouting, but the trees are right there and one good jump has a low branch within reach until he’s up safely in the harbor of leaves.

The furs are mostly gone now, littering his path to freedom except for a few that managed to stay within the vined, squishy rock. The lights pass over his covering leaves and his gaze jerks up as he pushes back towards the wide trunk of the tree. He’s making a whining noise low in his throat that he can’t stop. He wants the safety of his family and his own leader, as harsh as he is.

The apes are gesturing wildly again as the light ape picks up the trail of furs and shakes his head. He’s getting closer to his tree and he can’t keep running yet until he gets the vine off his leg. He’ll only get caught up in the branches.

The other two keep repeating that same noise from earlier that day ‘stevestevesteve’. It’s mixed in with all the other noises, but the light ape seems to respond to that particular grunt more. His fingers are fumbling at the vine, but he can’t snap it like the ones from the trees and his fingers scrape against it and he whines again.

The light ape -stevestevesteve, he’ll decide to try and mimic that grunt later when he’s safe and alone, looks up at his tree. How stevestevesteve can hear him through the rest of the jungle’s noises, he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to find out at the moment. His chest hurts and is beating hard, he’s scared still. Rightly so. The other apes look angry and sound like they’re arguing with stevestevesteve.

Stevestevesteve is making noises up at his tree, the light in his hand looking into the leaves. It barely filters through to where he’s sitting, but he presses back even more, the bark biting into the furless skin of his back. His muscles are bunched and ready for flight, waiting for the moment he gets the vine off.

He yanks once, twice more, and he’s free. He watches the vine and furs topple down towards the forest floor and stevestevesteve, then he’s gone when the light ape makes more noises and bends to pick it up.

He isn’t sure how he’ll explain this to his leader.

~~~

It’s a couple days later and Steve is at a loss. He stares at the cold fire pit with his chin in his hand as he listens to Bucky trying to talk him into going home again. Sam is passing out breakfast bars and nodding in agreement.

“I don’t want to go home,” Steve says for the fifth time. “You guys can keep sticking close to camp, but I’m still going out to draw. It was just some…monkey or something that got into the tent. I got my clothes back. It hasn’t come back and it’s not a big deal.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam says at the end of that. “Did you just say it isn’t a big deal? The monkey got into your tent without a sound then tried to run off with your stuff! What if it’d gotten violent?! What if-”

“I get it!” Steve throws his hands up. “Jesus, Sam. We were in the army, remember? I think we can handle a single monkey.”

Bucky grumbles around his protein bar and Steve flips his over in absent contemplation.

The thing is, Steve’s not so sure it was a monkey. The whole scene is a blur, the event happening too fast, but whatever had been in his tent, it was way too big for Steve to write off as just a monkey. Maybe it’s an orangutan, but definitely not a monkey.

He sighs and stands, pocketing his breakfast.

“Where are you going?” Bucky asks in resignation.

“Out,” Steve dryly responds, ducking inside his tent long enough to grab his case of art supplies and a radio. “I’ll be fine. Why don’t you go to the river nearby and wash up, Buck. You’re starting to smell like a downer.”

Steve can’t see Bucky’s middle finger as he walks off into the jungle in a direction he hasn’t been yet. He stops after about twenty minutes of a straight walk, relaxing the more he sees the beauty in the trees and the wildlife. There are birds taking to the skies above him and he memorizes the colors exploding in the filtered light and the stretch of their wings. The noises around him are distinct and indistinct all at once as they meld together in an age-old chorus.

Rebecca had been insanely nice and very pretty, but strip clubs just aren’t Steve’s thing. This is what he enjoys, the peaceful image and the edge of danger just beneath. He knows to be careful, but he can still fully appreciate the breathtaking scenery.

He places a pole in the ground with a black slash facing the way he’d come and finds a bright enough area near the base of a tree, settling down onto one of its thick buttress roots, which sticks partially above ground. There are a few plants and flowers dotted along the ground that Steve quickly sketches. As he finishes that, he begins working on recreating the birds he saw.

He loses track of time and Buck and Sam must be using the space to complain while he’s gone because the radio is silent, has been for a couple hours. He sits up a little and stretches.

And freezes.

He’s suddenly aware of being watched. A subtle rising of the hair on his neck is a clear sign; instincts warning him there might be a threat. He carefully begins to pack up, not wanting to lose any of his supplies if there’s something unwanted nearby. He’s carrying a small tranquilizer pistol in his boot, but he isn’t inclined to use it if he doesn’t have to.

“Hello?” he calls, immediately feeling stupid because, most assuredly, whatever is watching him can’t speak.

There’s a heavy, unexpected silence after his query until a strange grunting sound is returned to him.

“Uh,” he responds, bending at the knees to pick his case up, gaze darting around futilely to spot the noisemaker.

The same grunt comes again, closer and from above. Steve tilts his head up, steps in a wide circle, trying to catch sight of the animal.

When he does, he drops his case, fingers numb and eyes wide with incredulity.

“You… You’re not a monkey at all!” He isn’t fainting, but the ground is suddenly much closer than he remembers and then it’s lights out.

~~~

As soon as his brother hits stevestevesteve on the head, he swings down from his perch and approaches the fallen ape cautiously. His brother drops the stone and begins picking at the thing stevestevesteve is lying beside, but he pays no attention to that.

He focuses on the light ape and crouches beside him. Looking at his face stirs something inside of him that he hasn’t felt before and it makes him curious, bold. He reaches out slowly and pokes the ape’s arm. When nothing happens, he pokes him harder.

He hopes his brother didn’t kill him, but if he’s here to steal furs, then all the better he supposes. There is a fluttering noise and his brother grunts a couple times to gain his attention. He looks over and his brother is waving a bird at him.

The bird is strange. It seems alive, but it seems caught, small and flat, on the… 

_Drawing_

The word hits him like the stone beside the ape’s head and he flails an arm out as his breath speeds up.

He knows what that is. He feels like he does, like he remembers it. He snatches it from his brother, turning his back as they squabble over the bird. He traces his fingers over it again and again. The bird smudges and he drops the drawing in dismay.

His brother is grumbling unhappy noises at him, antsy and bored and ready to continue onto other pursuits. He tries to get him to go with, but he shakes his head and pushes his brother away. He hears his brother grunt again and amble off towards home.

He stays there, watching the drawing stick to the ground and the smudged bird try to fly. After a moment, he turns back to stevestevesteve and looks at his fur. He picks at it with just two of his fingers, balancing on the flat of his fingers in preparation to run if needed.

The fur is loose and soft and comes away from the skin when he pulls. He makes a face, tossing his own hair out of his eyes to peer closer. The skin beneath the fur is smooth and just as pale as the ape’s face. That seems acceptable with the fur, though, and he shrugs it off.

On the ape’s stomach, there is a scar much like the one on his own face. It is bumpy and long and he brushes his fingers across it then his own. The light ape’s seems worse, but he shrugs off that too. A leader is bound to have plenty of markings like that.

The ape shifts at his touches and he grabs the rock beside his head. He isn’t going to run this time and he’s prepared to take stevestevesteve down if he has to, but the light ape groans and issues a grunt much like his own leader does after a long day of the young wanting to play on him. He crouches back a step, rock still in his hand as the ape hisses like a snake and lifts his hands to his head.

He feels bad out of nowhere. He forgot to check the ape’s head for damage, but there isn’t anything he can do about that at the moment, so he waits until he’s noticed. It doesn’t take long. The light ape catches sight of him, mouth opening slowly and then thinning when he looks at the rock.

He cocks his head to the side, not understanding the noise the ape makes after that, but he thinks it might have to do with his head and the wariness about his eyes. The ape’s reaching for his feet and he leans forward curiously, blinking at the thing glinting now in stevestevesteve’s hand.

It’s not something he’s seen before, but it’s dark and shiny in the filtered light and the ape is saying something again, but he doesn’t understand until the light ape says ‘steve’ and he’s heard that before. He’s practiced it by himself.

“Steebsteebsteeb,” he grunts back in a graveled, awkward curl of his tongue and he sees the light ape bare his teeth slowly. He doesn’t think it’s a warning though, so he bares his own right back to copy, but by the way the light ape reacts, his might be a bit scarier than he intended.

Maybe he should let go of the rock.

~~~

Steve listens to the…man say try to say his name. The tranquilizer gun is steady in his hand still, but his head his throbbing and he’s pretty sure he’s hallucinating, because… Just no.

There’s a man crouched a few feet away with a rather big rock in his hands. He thinks he might be smiling, but the man just looks deranged and…

The man is naked.

Steve flushes and keeps his gaze resolutely on the man’s face.

“Who are you?” He asks and watches the man put the rock down and step closer. He doesn’t move himself, keeping the gun on the guy. “Don’t… Don’t come any closer.”

But he’s beginning to think the man can’t understand him and, really, why is he naked?

“What are you doing out here? Are you lost? Are you on drugs? If you’re tripping out, my buddies and I can get you somewhere safely. With clothes.”

“Steebsteebsteeb,” the man says and Steve bites back a correction. He should really tranq the man, but he can’t bring himself to and can’t understand why. The guy’s obviously dangerous if he’s hitting people in the head with rocks.

A finger pokes him in the chest.

“Steebsteebsteeb,” the man repeats.

“It’s Steve,” Steve stresses the word and blinks. “Uh. Name? Do you have a name? You don’t understand me, do you?”

The man sits back on his haunches and peers at Steve through long, brown hair.

“Are you native? I didn’t think there were any out this far,” Steve says despite the fact he’s established there’s no point in conversing. It makes him feel better than silence would. He inches back on his bottom a bit and gets to his feet. He sways once before the man is yanking him back down with a surprisingly-strong grip. His fingers are hot around his arm and Steve grunts as he hits the ground.

“Wha-” The tranq gun skitters across the grass and tree root until Steve would have to stretch for it. The man is pushing his head down, though, and Steve reaches up to grab the man just as he feels tentative fingers prodding around the bump on his head.

He stills, breathing shallow, and waits, heart beating hard. He’s entirely out of his depth at the moment, caught off kilter and not knowing exactly what he should do. He doesn’t think he needs to take this guy out, but if he could get him to come back to the camp with him, he could get him some help at least.

They could radio the ranger; have the guy airlifted out to a hospital at least. The man grunts once and shifts and, suddenly, Steve has a face full of the man’s penis.

He splutters and scrambles back with a shove at the man’s chest.

“Whoa!” He’s shouting, face flaming and hands up. “Whoa. I don’t think so, buddy! What the hell?!”

The man’s eyes are as wide as his own and he’s crouched over a large tree root where Steve must have pushed him. There’s a nasty red mark on the man’s thigh that will probably bruise. Steve feels briefly bad about that, yanking his gaze up.

“You’re the thing from the camp the other night,” he accuses, getting to his feet once more. “You tried to steal from us, right? God, how long have you been out here? Look at your hair… And your teeth. Jesus, okay, you’ve gotta be on drugs… Okay. Okay. Tell you what. Let me find the radio and I’ll get you some help.”

The man is frowning, baring his teeth at Steve. He begins to move and Steve matches each step with one of his own backwards, but the man only goes as far as the picture Steve had drawn earlier. He’s picking it up and reaching out as if to hand it to Steve.

Steve hesitates then scoops up the gun and steps closer to take the picture.

“Thank you?” he means to say, not ask, but the man is turning around and Steve is stunned. He’s walking like a monkey and Steve thinks that instead of hallucinating, he’s just dreaming. The man stops, balancing on the flat of his knuckles and grunts a series of noises at him.

Steve is pretty sure he’s meant to follow the guy. He knows he should not. He knows that this is the start of any horror film Sam loves to binge on. He knows Bucky will kill him if Steve gets himself killed.

But there’s something in the guy’s brown eyes that just makes Steve want to see where he’s going, what he wants to show him. And that’s crazy. God, it’s so crazy. He feels a bit like Alice in Wonderland.

But instead of the White Rabbit, Steve’s following a brown, naked man.

He’s done worse things with his life.

~~~

His leg hurts, but he leaves it for now as he’s more concerned with the bump on steebsteebsteeb’s head. He grunts to himself. Steeeeeb the ape had grunted at him, so he was still saying it wrong. He exhales and checks that steeeeeb is still following him.

Satisfied, he picks a slow path towards a grove that he knows grows the flower his mother uses for healing. It will help with life oozing from the bump and he’s worried that his brother might have hit the ape too hard if he’s still swaying. He checks again but steeeeeb seems steadier in his gait even though he’s still walking funny. He thinks it might just be cautiousness.

The ape is grunting to himself lowly as he follows as if he doesn’t want him to hear, but he’s still curious that he’s itching with it. It also angers him that he still doesn’t understand this ape’s communication. He wants to know what he’s saying, what he wants and why he’s here.

He stops at the peak of a hill and waits for the ape, but steeeeeb stops just before it and eyes him without any kind of grunt of indication. He grunts at steeeeeb: heal, head, bump, life, flower. Steeeeeb backs up a step and he feels something behind his chest bloom quick and hot and grunts again, more urgently. He doesn’t want the ape to go. He wants him to stay so he can help, so he can listen to steeeeeb grunt some more. He sounds pleasing.

He bares his teeth again like steeeeeb had before and hears steeeeeb grunt softly again before climbing up the hill. He ducks over the hill as steeeeeb stops at the top to see the little cove below. He doesn’t wait, though, going straight for the edge of the water where a flash of color catches his eye and he picks the flower.

Then he’s circling around the bank, looking for more. He drops a pile on a flat rock nearby just as steeeeeb crouches at the water. He watches the light ape bend over to clean himself and can’t look away even as he brings another rock down on his hand instead of the flowers. He makes an annoyed sound and steeeeeb looks over. His face feels hot all of a sudden and he ducks his head to concentrate on the flower.

Steeeeeb grunts at him slowly as he steps closer and he gestures for steeeeeb to sit as he sticks the mashed flowers in his mouth to work into a sticky mess.

~~~

Steve looks at his reflection in the small pool of water and sighs before cleaning the dirt off his hands and face. There’s a dull thud and a noise of pain and he looks over to the man to see him glaring at the rock in his hand. Looking from both of his hands, Steve can guess what’d just happened.

“Are you okay?” he asks slowly, pushing to his feet and wandering closer. The man indicates that he should sit and, still not thinking this is a good idea, Steve does. He catches on rather quickly to what the man thinks he’s going to do and he’s already shaking his head as the man starts chewing on the flowers.

“No. No way. You’re not putting that on my head. I’m fine, just need antiseptic and an aspirin,” he says immediately. “You really should come with me. I could get you some help. God, I wish you could understand me. There’s no way this is real.”

“Steeeeeb,” the man grunts and Steve sighs again.

“Steve,” he echoes, pointing at his chest then pointing to the guy’s. The guy grunts twice, one short and the second longer. “Steve,” he says again and then points back. He gets the same two grunts. Steve is silent for a moment, watching the man. Is that how the man identifies himself or is he just making noise because Steve is?

The radio at his hip makes a noise and startles Steve. He’d almost forgotten about it. He puts a hand out to stop the guy as he goes to bring the mess of flowers up to his head.

“No,” he says sharply as he unclips the radio. “I’m here, Sam. I need you guys to help me back to camp.”

“What?!” Sam replies. “What happened? Where are you? Are you hurt?”

“I’m going to break his fucking legs, then he’ll be hurt,” Steve hears Bucky in the background as he watches the guy gesture with the flowers at Steve’s head then his thigh. He spreads the flowers a bit on his bruising thigh then gestures at Steve again. Steve feels sick to his stomach.

“I’ve…” he trails off. How could he explain this? “I found someone that needs help and I’ve gotten a little lost while trying to contain him. I think he’s tripping.”

There’s a long silence and Steve checks that the batteries are still good in the radio. While his head is ducked, the guy gets the flowers into his hair and Steve feels like he’s going to throw up.

“Lots of antiseptic then,” he mutters, jerking away from the guy who is giving him that deranged smile again. He looks a bit too smug for Steve’s tastes.

“What are your coordinates now?” Bucky asks instead of Sam in a tight voice. Steve pats at his pockets to find his compass and pulls it out.

“Northwest,” he rubs at his eye and watches as the guy goes to collect more flowers all while casting glances at him. “And I think I traveled South before that. Not sure how far at this point.”

"'Northwest' is not a coordinate, Steve, c'mon."

It takes a couple minutes to get a direction worked out. Sam will stay at the camp and Bucky will meet him in the jungle.

Steve stands and reclips the radio. He puts his hands on his hips and tries to imitate the two grunts the guy had given him. It must work to some extent because the guy pauses with a flowers in his fist to look at him.

“Follow me,” Steve tries, pointing the way they’d come. He makes little walking motions with the fingers on his other hand. Half turning, he waves at the man who cocks his head to the side. “Please follow me.”

If Steve knows any better, he thinks the man looks sad, but he nods with a single grunt and crouches after him as he starts back up the hill. Steve rubs the back of his neck and hopes that the sensation of being watched is coming from the man again. He doesn’t think he can deal with anything else at the moment.

~~~

Steve is taking the guy back the way they had come, muttering lowly to himself and trying to figure out how to better explain this to Bucky. He’s pulled out of his distraction as he notices the guy making little grunts like a chittering cat.

The man seems almost nervous as he follows Steve, pacing him in an agitated manner that instantly has Steve on high alert. His hand goes for his boot before he remembers he’d forgotten the gun on the ground when he’d gone for the radio.

“What is it?” he asks quickly, softly, even though he knows the guy won’t give him anything but a short noise or two. And he gets the sudden feeling like he’s dealing with a dog and he resumes his stride, but pays more attention to the leaves around him.

There aren’t any extra noises that he can figure out, nothing that he can immediately peg out of place, but he’s never spent this long in a jungle before. His tours always took him through Iraq or Afghanistan, never the Amazon. But the guy, and really Steve needs to get him a name because he can’t exactly pronounce those two grunts, is almost bristling behind him.

Which means they’re probably being stalked by a predator. Great. Next thing you know, the sky will open up on them and start raining. Steve gives it a second then looks up.

The sky is still startlingly blue.

They keep walking and the guy starts making wide arcs behind Steve and it’s driving him nuts to the point that it’s almost a relief when three of apes emerge from a tangled mass of vines and roots. With their appearance, the guy’s hand, still brandingly-hot, is latching around Steve’s wrist and gripping tight.

It goes mostly unnoticed as Steve is already stopped and staring at the bulky ape at the forefront of the small group. It’s obvious that he’s encountering a pack or is it a herd? Steve doesn’t know, but he’s pretty sure that the large one is a silverback, a leader. Especially when Steve judges by the scars over the fur.

The silverback gives a loud, harsh sound that has one of the apes behind him cowering slightly, but the guy behind Steve lets go of his wrist and moves forward. Steve goes to stop him, but the guy pushes him back and makes noise right back at the ape.

Steve blinks in dawning realization that the man clearly recognizes these primates and is, apparently, protecting him from them. The leader is getting angrier by the second, fists pounding the ground as the guy pounds his right back. A smaller ape is grunting and the other has acquired a branch.

Steve thinks this might be the worst day of his life when it’s clear that these apes are going to kill them. His gaze darts quickly around the forest floor, looking for any kind of weapon he can defend himself with as the guy launches himself at the leader.

Chaos erupts as the apes go crazy and Steve can barely hear past their snarls, but he can see the fierceness with which they’re all fighting and he’s got to get that guy out of there before he gets killed.

He’s just picking up a fallen branch of his own when the leader barrels into him. He hits the ground with no air left in his lungs and he pushes frantically at the ground to try to get at least on his back if not back to his feet, but the ape is heavy and it’s got the leverage as it brings both fisted hands down.

Steve manages to twist around slightly and cops the blow to his shoulder. He bites his tongue and instantly shouts for Bucky, hoping they’d walked far enough that his friend was nearby. He’s stretching for the branch as he elbows the leader in the face when he hears a throaty ‘Steeeeeb’ and feels extra weight impact against the leader before the guy and the leader are tumbling away.

Steve rolls to his side, pulling in breath in painful wheezes. He shakes the hair out of his eyes to see one of the smaller apes is gone and the other is lying motionless. The guy and the leader are still struggling, but he can tell the guy is losing his stamina as he tries to block the blows from the leader’s big fists.

There’s a crack and a wounded keening from the guy as his arm is bent back at an angle and Steve scrambles to his feet. He’s dragging the branch up from the ground just as the ape freezes above the guy who starts to drag himself backward.

The silverback whirls around and Steve sees the colored end of a tranquilizer dart in its back. The ape starts running towards Bucky who is emerging from beside a wide tree. He’s got a dart between his teeth, but the gun he’s carrying then is not the tranquilizer gun. Steve knows that pistol anywhere and he’d never mistake the sound as the gunshot is left ringing in his ears.

Steve watches the ape drop to the ground, blood splattering from the back of its head. Bucky looks from the dead primate, to the guy who’s pressed against a tree trunk, cradling his broken arm, then finally back to Steve.

“I’m so fucking glad to see you,” Steve says with an explosive sigh.

“Why is he naked?” his friend asks and Steve laughs wetly, adrenaline still pumping through his system.

“I’ll explain back at camp.”

~~~

His arm isn’t working and he knows that if his mother can’t fix it, then he probably won’t be able to use it the same again. He hurts all over and he can’t stop looking at the body of his fallen leader even as the two other apes talk with each other. He can’t slow his breathing properly, chest beating hard and limbs feeling almost weightless.

He’s scared they’re going to kill him next even though he went against his family, his pack, to protect steeeeeb. That reminder makes him jerk away from the tree he was huddled again. He scrambles unsteadily past steeeeeb, evading the hands that reach for him as steeeeeb turns after him.

He settles at the other ape’s side and he feels something break inside. His brother isn’t moving, eyes dull and chest still. He paws at him, grunts at him, but there’s no response. He doesn’t understand why his brother brought their leader. He doesn’t understand why his brother had to fight him.

There’s a distinct feeling of different that’s trying to make itself known in his mind, but it’s blotted out by a rough grunt, another one and another until he’s rocking on his heels and his face is wet. He keeps pawing at his brother, moving his arms for him, trying to get him up even though part of him knows he won’t.

Who will he swing with now?

Who will he run with through the trees and mock the birds?

Who will be the only one to sit with him and jump when he makes something else?

The pack will surely shun him for the deaths.

Who does he have now?

It’s a pain he’s felt before, a long time ago. A terror in his chest that makes him yell and scrape his hands against the ground, mindless of the agony of his broken arm, as he tries to get the blood off his fingers. He needs to take his brother back to his mother. She’ll banish him, turn her back on him, but he needs to, needs to because he doesn’t know what else to do and-

-and then there arms snapping around him and he’s kicking and twisting as steeeeeb tries to pull him away from his brother and his grunts are soft in his ear, strained as they both struggle and he can’t see through the wetness in his eyes The body of his brother is blurry and misshapen and he’s screaming, screaming a sound his throat hasn’t made in a long time.

“No!” long and drawn out and raw with it as steeeeeb drags him backwards toward the other ape. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He just wants them to let him go, leave him be. He’s learned his lesson again. He’ll take his brother then take his punishment, but he can’t leave him there. He can’t breathe past the “No!” then he feels steeeeeb’s arms shift around him, pinning his broken arm and his throat closes, his insides stutter and blinding white pain gives over to him bringing his food from earlier up.

There’s a briefer, sharp pain and darkness descends as he slumps, wounded noises coming from his mouth he can’t stop until he can’t stay awake anymore. The last he hears is steeeeeb grunt angrily.

~~~

The trek back to camp had been silent save for Sam’s helpful directions and their footsteps. The man is unconscious in Steve’s tent now and he leaves him there after checking on his arm again. He’d wrapped it while arguing with Bucky over tranquilizing the guy, but he feels bad about yelling now, because there really hadn’t been another choice.

The guy would’ve hurt himself worse if they hadn’t calmed him down. He'll have to make it up to him later, for now, he takes his shirt off and sits by the fire so that Sam can take a look at his shoulder and head.

“The ranger said they’re sending a heli soon,” Bucky announces as he sets the radio down. “I’m going to start packing things up and you’re going to explain what the fuck just happened.”

And so, that’s what Steve does to the best of his understanding, wincing occasionally at Sam’s prodding fingers.

“Damn, this sounds like something straight out of story,” Sam says, shaking his head. Steve has to agree, but the look Bucky is giving him is stone and he knows that the lecturing is far from over.

“I’m going to see about setting that arm as best I can for your monkey friend and get some kind of clothes on him before the rangers get here. Or a blanket toga. Something.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Steve says sincerely and waits for Sam to go into the tent before getting to his feet. “Let me help, Buck.”

“Do you have any idea what would’ve happened if I hadn’t gotten there in time?” Bucky says, tone tight and movements pointedly controlled.

“I know,” Steve replies and he puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, causing the other man to stop and exhale noisily. “I’m sorry, but I’m grateful. I should’ve just left it well enough alone, but he obviously needs help. You saw him.”

“The guy’s deranged,” Bucky growled. “and probably feral or something. We’ll give him to the rangers then you’re getting a proper medical checkup. And no, you’re never picking our outings again.”

Steve smiled slightly. “Sure thing, Buck.”

In the distance, the chopper’s blades cut through the sky and the men begin to pack up as efficiently as they can.

By nightfall, they’re back at the safari complex. A medical team takes the guy to a local hospital as an on-site aide checks Steve over. He feels a pang of guilt watching the guy disappear down the road. He feels like he should go with the team, but Bucky’s dragging him towards the taxi after he’s pronounced well enough to go home.

They get back to their motel and Steve bids them good night. Slipping into a hot bath, he downs a couple pain pills and a sleep aid before tipping his head back against the tub and closing his eyes. He normally wouldn’t bother with a sleep aid, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to go to sleep with the guy’s heartbroken screams ringing in his ears.

After washing, he drags himself into his bed and lies on his side, facing the window. He stares out at the night and tries to ignore the sense of an unfinished duty. The guy isn’t his problem anymore and he should just let it go. He buries his head under his pillow and forcibly, slowly, counts backward from one thousand.

He’s asleep before he hits eight hundred.

~~~

Since their excursion was cut short, they spend another two days in Johannesburg before their flight to go home. It’s late the second afternoon when Steve begs off the next adventure and sits on the balcony outside his hotel room. He sits, legs spread and hands clasped, and tries to understand what his conscience is trying to tell him.

Should he contact the hospital to see how the man is doing? Would it be considered considerate, the act of a good samaritan, or would they reject his inquiries because they don’t have a familial relationship? He sighs, scratching a hand through his hair, and hangs his head. He knows this shouldn’t be bothering him as much, but he always becomes easily invested in the civilians he helps.

This, though… This is much different than he’s used to.

The ringing of his phone startles him. It’s not a number he knows because the tone is default. He leans over and tugs it across the table’s glass top, confirming the unknown number.  “Hello?” he answers, placing it on speaker and kicking his feet up on the balcony railing.

“Yes, may I speak with Mr. Steve Rogers?” a woman’s thick accent replies.

“This is him.”

“Mr. Rogers, my name is Dr. Munroe from Joburg Gen. I would like to speak with you regarding a patient that was brought in under my care two days ago.”

Steve feels his heart kick up and he straightens in his chair.

“I don’t… I’m not familiar with Joburg Gen.” It’s the first thing that pops into his head and rubs his forehead. “Th-that’s a hospital, yeah. I’m sorry. The patient? I don’t know what I can do for you about that. I’m not even sure how you got this number.”

Dr. Munroe sighs and there’s the sound of papers shifting over the line.

“The rangers tell me that you were the one who found Piet Pompies in the forest. When he kept repeating your name over and over, I contacted them again in hopes that perhaps you’d be able to calm him down. We’ve had to keep him heavily sedated in case he hurts himself or a member of my staff. In this state, it’s possible to treat his physical injuries, but we have no clue as to how extensive his mental capacity is; it's not even certain he has any language. If you’re willing, would you be able to come by the hospital?”

“Piet Pompies?” Steve blinks, repeating the strange name.

“Ah, yes. I believe Americans refer to them as John…Deer?”

“John Doe, ma’am,” Steve replies faintly, still amazed that the man had been asking for him. Well, he thinks the man was asking for him. Maybe the repeating of his sort-of name was all the man could do besides grunt. “Yes, well, I would come, but our flight leaves tomorrow and I’m not su-”

“I’m on shift tonight, Mr. Rogers, that is why I called now. If you must, think it over. I thank you for your time.”

“Good...bye?” Steve says and the line clicks before the call ends on his phone. He stares at it for a long time then pockets it and his wallet before leaving the hotel room.

~~~

He thanks the taxi driver with a tip as he looks up at the clean lines of the hospital and heads into the main entrance. He announces himself awkwardly at the reception desk and gets sent to the waiting room, where he paces restlessly.

“Mr. Rogers, I’m glad you decided to come,” Dr. Munroe’s voice greets him after a couple minutes. Steve turns to look at her and shifts a little. She’s a tall woman, dark skin and shockingly white hair pulled into a messy bun. She doesn’t look old enough for hair that color, but Steve thinks it suits her. He blinks and shakes his head slightly.

“Dr. Munroe,” he responds. “I’m honestly not sure what help I can provide, but if my presence helps even a little…”

“We won’t know until we try. Please, come this way. Mr. Doe is due for another sedative soon and I’d prefer not to give it to him.”

Steve walks with her to an elevator and follows her inside. She presses the floor they’ll need and Steve watches the counter tick up.

“How is he?” he asks after a moment.

“His arm is broken, but we were able to set it without problem,” Dr. Munroe smiles. “Unfortunately, I don’t think he appreciates our efforts as when he first discovered the cast, he tried to beat it off. He has a few contusions, but with the sedation, he’s had a couple days to rest and they seem to be healing nicely.”

“That’s good,” Steve replies and follows Dr. Munroe out and down the hallway of rooms. A few nurses smile at him as he passes with the doctor and he tips his head politely to each. In a moment of second-guessing, he turns his phone off and slides it in his pocket.

“He’s right in here,” Dr. Munroe says, gesturing Steve inside a private room where the man is strapped to one of the beds. Steve stops just inside the doorway and stares. The man’s hair is gone. Head and face shaved clean, there is a bandage behind his ear that crawls towards the back of his head. There are also a few stitches around his mouth. The thick, white restraints are padded, but there is reddening around the man’s skin where it’s obvious he’s tried to pull free.

“We thought it best to remove his hair completely, considering his state when he was brought in,” Dr. Munroe explains as she shuts the door behind them. She goes to the end of the bed and pulls his folder out of its slot. “We found the laceration afterwards. The scar tissue around his mouth was becoming infected, so we treated that too, and reconstructed the lip.”

“Ah,” Steve says and doesn’t know what else to say. There’s a nurse in the room with them, supposedly readying the next dose of sedation, but Dr. Munroe tells her that it won’t be needed right away and already the man is stirring.

Steve watches the man’s eyes flicker back and forth before opening. It sounds like hell after that as the man tries to struggle with the straps holding him down. He’s shouting, loud and hoarse, and he’s shaking the bed. Both the nurse and Dr. Munroe actively try to settle his limbs without much success.

“Mr. Rogers, if you’d please,” Dr. Munroe says over the man’s tantrum and Steve steps forward with a swallow until he’s sure he’s in the man’s eyeline.

“Hey…” he winces. “Hey, it’s me. It’s Steve. Remember? It’s Steeeeeve.”

The man’s eyes are wild, wide open and terrified, but he spies Steve and it takes him a long, long moment before he stills completely. Even lying down, it appears as if the man draws in on himself even as he’s breathing frantically.

“Steve,” Steve tries again and his smile is quick when the man responds.

“Steve.”

~~~

Steve stays for longer than he means to, pulling up a chair and talking aimlessly to the guy as the nurse changes his IV bag. They’re keeping him on fluids for dehydration and nutrients in case the guy refuses to eat now that he’s awake. Steve can’t help but notice that they’re also pumping the guy -and really, he should think of him as at least John for now- full of enough antibiotics to clean the systems of an elephant. He wonders what John was taking in the jungle, but knows that’s too personal for the doctor to tell him.

John is still, watching Steve intensely and poised for flight seemingly at the first chance of it. But he’s no longer yanking on the restraints and Steve watches John’s eyes follow the movement of his hands as he talks. He tells John about Bucky, miming the gun that he’d helped.

John’s eyes narrow at that, but he doesn’t attempt to speak and he hasn’t said since saying Steve’s name perfectly once. So Steve keeps talking and tells him about Sam, coughing once or twice as his throat gets dry. The doctor glances at him and smiles slightly in sympathy, but there is clear gratitude in her gaze as she jots in John’s folder.

Steve guesses he’s doing an okay job keeping the guy distracted until Dr. Monroe interrupts to try and ask John some questions.

“Do you remember your name, sir?” she asks and John stares at her, fingers twitching.

“Steve,” John replies in that rough voice and Steve ducks his head a little.

“I’m Steve,” he corrects, pointing to his own chest. He points again. “Steve.” Then points to the doctor. “Dr. Munroe.” Back to himself. “Steve.”

John is turning his head between them both and his features are screwing up, muscles bunching in his shoulders and Steve fears he’s going to start struggling again, but he just grunts. Long and short, like before, while watching Steve again.

“That’s what he did when I asked him before,” Steve sighs and Dr. Munroe clicks her tongue, making another note.

“Interesting,” she murmurs then ask; “The exact tonal formation?”

“Actually, yeah,” Steve rubs his neck, stretching the muscle there. “Think it’s what he thinks his name is?” He frowns as he asks, tries to reword it better, but Dr. Munroe is already nodding.

“It’s a good chance,” she says as she flips over a sheet of notes. “He may have a multi-syllabic first name. It’s a start, because, if that’s the case, then he probably understands us at least.”

“Wouldn’t he?” Steve asks, frown deepening, but there’s a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that the doctor confirms a moment later. John is trying to reach for Steve, fingers curving towards him. Steve reaches back absently.

“I don’t believe he was lost in the jungle due to narcotics, Mr. Rogers,” Dr. Munroe informs him, tilting her head as Steve carefully closes his hand around John’s. “This case is too difficult to pin just on that. We’re working on identifying him through other means.”

“Oh, like dental…records?” Steve winces as he suggests that, because the guy’s teeth are clearly a mess. John’s gaze is making him nervous as he doesn’t seem to care for looking at the doctor. He clears his throat, shifting slightly to face her more fully.

Dr. Munroe smiles, her own teeth bright against her dark skin.  “Despite their appearance, his teeth seem to be in good shape. They just need some stern cleaning. Among other things. But, we’re also running DNA scans and casting a wide net to other countries.”

“Oh, good. I certainly hope you’re able to get him home,” Steve relaxes a little at the news, ignoring the pang of something at the thought of the guy having a family waiting for him somewhere.

The next couple hours pass just the same. They ask more questions and receive nothing but grunts and the occasional ‘Steve’ and ‘No’ that in context make no sense.

Eventually, it’s too late for Steve to justify staying. John is beginning to drift asleep, so he carefully pulls his hand away and stands. John instantly jerks awake and tries to follow Steve.

“Hey,” Steve chides softly, curling a hand over the rail John is strapped to. “Hey, buddy. It’s okay. I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’m going home tomorrow. But don’t worry. They’ll figure everything out for you and you’ll be home in no time too.”

“Steve.” John’s expression is confused and Steve feels guilt at leaving him, but he has no choice.

“Yeah,” Steve says thickly, swallowing. “You’ll see. Home in no time.”

“Steve!” John says louder and, before Steve can think it through, he leans down presses a kiss to John’s forehead.

“You’ll be okay, monkey-man,” he whispers against John’s forehead. He pulls back, sure his eyes are as saucer-wide as John’s. He clears his throat and turns away, walking stiffly out of the hospital room.

“Steeeeeve!” John’s shouts follow him out along with the sound of him struggling. “Steve! No! Noooooo! Steve! Steeeeeve!”

Steve doesn’t turn around, hand clutching tightly to the phone in his pocket. His eyes are wet, but he doesn’t scrub his face until he’s in the cab and heading back to the motel where he gets yet another lecture from Buck and Sam.

Their flight leaves in the afternoon.

The story explodes across the world before their plane touches down.

~~~

“Little Anthony Stark,” Sarah hums as she watches the news. She leans to the side to see around Steve as he places her dinner tray in front of her. “Who could have ever imagined? Of course, you won’t remember, because you were just a wee babe when the Starks died, but he was such a precocious child. So smart and shining in the spotlight.”

“Is that right, Mama?” Steve wonders absently, settling down beside her on the couch. He tucks the blanket beneath her leg again and tips his head back with a sigh. Honestly, he’s in too much shock over the surprising outcome of his John Doe of the jungle.

The news coverage surrounding Anthony Stark is extraordinary, not that Steve doesn’t understand why, but he just cannot seem to wrap his head around the story. It seems like something too much in the realm of fairy tales…not that the boy Anthony Stark had been would agree. Having your plane crash at the age of five… Losing your parents. Surviving on your own until your only recourse was to live with a pack of apes. How did things like that just happen?

If it hadn’t been for Howard Stark’s paranoia, then Anthony never would have been found. According to the news, when Anthony had been four, he’d been kidnapped by a rival weapons company, so Howard had insisted they all have their blood sampled in case it had happened again, The DNA sample Dr. Munroe had sent around the globe had pinged in Manhattan, New York.

After verifying the validity of the sample, and as Anthony was in no fit state to travel, Stark Industries had immediately sent out a team of experts to oversee Anthony’s recovery and progress. Keeping him in as familiar a place as possible until he’s cleared seems to be the unanimous decision.

“Mm,” Sarah hums again, leaning forward as she picks up her fork. Her grip is loose and her hand is shaking slightly. Steve can’t stand to see her fragility, so he doesn’t look. He knows how offended she’ll get if he offers to help, so he doesn’t. “He’s almost the spitting image of his father, except without the hair of course.”

“Of course,” Steve murmurs. His stomach rolls a little as the news brings up the one picture every channel is allowed to have. In it, Anthony looks small, swallowed up by the sheets that are surely hiding the fact that he’s still strapped to the bed. He’s paler than Steve left him. but his eyes are dark and defiant where they stare down the lens, He actually think Anthony looks more like his mother. While he might have his father’s eyes, his features are definitely softer like Maria Stark’s. Aside from the scar that Anthony sports across his mouth.

He looks nothing like he did as a child.

“What a waste,” his mother clucks her tongue and pokes at her mashed potatoes. “The Starks were definitely going somewhere. They were going to change the world. Why, I still remember when Mr. Stark first announced their Clean Energy Campaign. He had such a catchy tune with it. Ah, but those days are in the past. Say, do you think that boy of his will follow in his footsteps?”

“Mama, I think Anthony Stark is going to need a lot of time to recover. He’s been in the jungle for a long time, remember?” Steve prompts gently, peeling the wrapper from a straw and plunking it down into his mother’s cola can.

“Shoot, you’re right of course,” Sarah smiles at him and reaches out a hand to pat his cheek. He returns the smile, catching her hand briefly squeezing before he lets her draw back. She sips at her cola, watching as the news finally moves onto another story.

“It’s a pity how they don’t mention you,” Sarah says and Steve drops his head back against the couch again.

“I asked the hospital and rangers not to mention me by name. I don’t want the publicity, Mama. I’ve got everything I need right here. You and my friends are all I need.”

“Now, boy, don’t you go buttering me up for a raise in your allowance,” Sarah chides in a teasing tone and Steve huffs a laugh.

“It was worth a shot.”

A couple hours later, Steve turns the light off from cleaning the kitchen and walks down the hall to check on his mother once more before he leaves for the night. She’s just pulling her covers up when he knocks lightly on the door frame.

“Do you need anything else, Mama?” he asks after making sure she has a glass of water on her nightstand.

“Oh, stop fussing over me, Steven,” she says like she always does and beckons him over to press a kiss to his forehead. “Good night, my son. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mama,” Steve whispers, kissing her cheek. He turns the light off on his way out and leaves the hallway light on. Making sure all the doors are locked, he leaves with a tired yawn.

~~~

For the next month  Anthony Stark continues to be headline news. Steve sees his face everywhere he goes and it still causes him mixed emotions. He’s happy that Anthony has been discovered and that he has the best medical teams looking out for him, but it’s bittersweet too. He feels like he should still be with Anthony in that hospital, still at his side and helping him relearn how to be… How to be human.

Sometimes he still wakes up to Anthony yelling for him and even just remembering it makes him shiver, even now as he walks into the VA for his shift. He distracts himself with helping other vets, and Bucky and Sam do their part; he couldn't ask for better friends. They drag him out on weekends and he manages to get back into the swing of living.

Four months later, Anthony Stark is brought home to the United States and Steve barely notices.

He dons a black suit that day, and doesn't have time to watch the news.

That’s the day he buries his mother.

~~~

It’s a very hard year.

A very slow, very painful, very hard year.

Anthony is put through so many different treatments that they all start to blend together. He has two nurses. A small female with a strange lilt to her voice and flame-bright hair. Anthony is afraid to touch it because he still shies away from what he’s relearned is fire. Nat -a nickname because his tongue still trips up over words with too many sounds in- has a tight smile, but a soft touch and he misses his ape-mother fiercely when she’s helping him with his speech therapy.

His second nurse is his physical therapist. He’s blonde and blue-eyed and Anthony calls him Steve the first time they meet then finds his face wet and heart hurting when the man laughs loudly and corrects him. His name is Theodore, but Anthony’s tongue mangles it in a stutter and ‘Thor’ excitedly adapts to the nickname.

Anthony starts to hide from him after the first two sessions, the day after his cast comes off. Thor’s purpose is to help Anthony’s body relearn how to stand and walk upright to its full potential. They promise him that it won’t take much as Anthony was able to extend when going from tree to tree, but working the muscles out in different ways is painful. He hides wherever he can afterwards, curling up under tables covered in cloth and rocking.

Nat finds him after the second time. She slides in beside him, smaller frame fitting easily beneath the table. With soft hands, she massages his shoulders and strokes down his back in soothing, firm passes until Anthony can’t help but uncurl a little, chest hitching with his pained breathing.

“It’s okay to cry, Stark,” she’s saying quietly, though Anthony can’t understand the full meaning of her words yet. He understands body language, though. “I know it hurts. I know you were taken from what you knew and all it seems like is that we’re hurting you, but we are trying to help. And we’ll continue to help you until you don’t need us anymore. We won’t abandon you through this.”

It’s too easy for Anthony to feel the earnestness in her touch, the kindness, the support. She would make a great pack mother. He turns into her, hiding his face in her lap as his shoulders shake and he does what she calls cry.

He cries for the family he lost and the home he was taken from. And he cries for Steve who started it all, unknowingly, and left him behind. He thinks that maybe Steve had abandoned him because he was too weak for his pack.

After that, Anthony forces himself to push harder, faster, more, into every therapy they put him through. The hardest part, he thinks, is remembering to think in ‘human’. To think and to act like a human after so many years of surviving otherwise, it’s enough to make him tear his hair out when he’d been trying to let grow long again.

Nat puts her foot down and they get his hair cut and styled short. They’re still debating over a beard, but Anthony feels naked without his and he knows the scar -freshly healed again- is prominent. He needs that beard for protection.

He touches Thor’s one night, fingers hesitant even as Thor watches him with a fond gaze and a rumble of affection as Anthony scratches his fingers through it.

“His is a beard. Yours is not a beard, Stark. That’s peach fuzz and my legs grow more hair than that,” Nat says.

Anthony can’t remember what a peach is but Thor is laughing and he feels himself smile as they sit at the table and help him through the next chapter in his math book. It’s not the same as the the pack, not by far, but it’s his now and it starts to feel a little like a family.  

Everyone is just as shocked as he is to realize how fast he picks things up.

‘Genius’, they call him. A word that Anthony has nothing to associate it with. They show him lots of meaningless papers that prove how smart he was before his parents died. They shake things at him and get loud until Thor and Nat step in and physically remove them from the room.

He trembles for a long time and memories flood through him. They look for purchase and he tries to hold on, but they slip through his fingers like the water in his jungle clearing.

One stands out, bright as his flowers in that clearing. He can see his mother’s face. His real mother’s.  Her eyes are shadowed, but her smile is happy as she kisses his forehead.  “Sleep, tesoro.”

But any more than that leaves him tangled in his sheets and gasping for breath.

Mostly, though, he catches on quick to numbers and puzzles and, when Thor’s friend comes over one day, he discovers that he can easily take apart her storm tracker and reassemble it.

Jane isn’t angry. She’s impressed and she sets up a few times to come and show Anthony some more ‘scientific delights’.

Nat just shakes her head and smiles that tight smile.

“They did tell us,” she murmurs. “I guess you’ll follow your father after all, Stark.”

And so life goes for Anthony. For a full year, until at dinner one night, Anthony sets his napkin on the table and makes a noise for attention.

“That better not be a grunt,” Nat says absently as she butters a piece of bread.

“I see…” Anthony hesitates and shifts in his chair. “Steve.”

Nat stills and Thor regards him quietly, one arm hooked over the back of his own chair. Anthony thinks he may have started off wrong. He quickly tries to remember speech patterns and politeness. He’s unsure how they’ll react to this. He very rarely brings Steve up, not after the few angry and depressed meltdowns had caused setbacks. But it’s been over a year and he thinks he’s calmed down enough.

“Please.”

~~~

It’s a very hard year.

A very long, very painful, very hard year.

Steve spends most of the year after his mother’s passing with his head down and soldiering through his life with a listless determination.

There are days where he can smile and joke around with Sam and Buck. There are days where he’s helping a fellow veteran and he’s reminded of all the good things that are still in life. Then there are days when a simple greeting can remind him that his mother’s gone and, with her, the light he’d always followed.

He breaks down at random intervals, devastated by his loss. Sam and Buck comfort him when they can, but even he knows that it’s wearing them down. He can’t help it.

His mother had been his entire life for nearly ten years, since she’d gotten sick and he’d had to give up his military career to take care of her. He just can’t figure out how to function normally without her. He knows… He knows that she’s no longer suffering, prays every day, every hour, every minute, every breath that she’s in a better place. Then prays that he’s not a bad person for wanting her still with him even if that means she’d still be in pain, still wasting away.

He stops going to church when the condolences and well-meant platitudes begin to brittle his smile. He picks up every shift he can get at the VA and, when that’s not enough to distract him, gets a second job that summer, working on boats.

It’s not something he’d ever wanted to do, but it’s working outside in the heat and keeps him busy enough to blank his mind. The methodical stripping with a hook scraper is a static sound that drowns out any other thoughts. He watches the varnish hit the deck of the boat and finds himself crying because it reminded him of the dirt they’d dropped on his mother’s coffin.

He’s alone, so he doesn’t hide his tears. He just keeps scraping away.

He works himself so hard and so much that Sam and Bucky worry about his health. They can’t manage to always get him out for a meal, but they take it in turns to make sure his fridge is stocked, to check its contents, to make sure he’s eating.

Steve’s not stupid. He eats. He showers. He sleeps …sometimes. He’s learned that when he does, he dreams of his mother’s laugh or the panicked call of his name from a man he doesn’t know. Or worse. He dreams of that same man, golden skin stretched over muscle and brown, accusing eyes.

He wakes up from those dreams, panting and covered in sweat and achingly hard. He never gives into it. He doesn’t have the energy. He functions on autopilot. He’s alive and he knows that. He just finds it very hard to motivate himself into going out and having fun. It just doesn’t feel like his thing anymore.

Until it’s easier.

Before he knows it, a year has passed and the summer is fading into fall faster with each leaf that turns golden bronze. As quickly as the days passed, the healing was certainly gradual. Steve still feels an ache in his heart that won’t ever go away, but he feels lighter than he has in a long time.

He stands out at the edge of a dock on Greenwood Lake. He breathes in crisp Autumn air and lets it out slowly, finding peace in the slow, rippling water.

“Here,” Bucky says, nudging a bottle of beer into his hand and Steve smiles at him, deep enough that the corners of his eyes crinkle.

“Thanks, Buck.”

“Yeah, well. Consider it a congratulations,” Bucky mutters, now nudging his elbow into Steve’s side. “Who would’ve thought you’d turn into a seaman?”

Steve snorts on his sip of beer and covers his mouth to cough.

“Seaman? Really? It's a lake," he says, indicating the view with his beer bottle. "No, I'm not a sailor... but I can appreciate this. This… This is gorgeous."

“The VA’s gonna miss you, you know,” Bucky responds after a moment. “But… We’ve missed you more.”

Steve turns his head to look at Bucky, who is determinedly not meeting his gaze. He smiles again, sad and fond, before pulling Bucky into a hug.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly and Bucky’s going to hate that his voice sounds wet. “Thanks for sticking it out. I love you guys.”

“Damn it,” Bucky growls and hugs him back just as tightly. “You’re a fuckin’ moron, Rogers. Of course we’d stick it out.  You never leave a man behind. Even if he loses his mind and buys a lake house to start his own boat business.”

Steve tenses slightly, but lets the innocent comment roll off his shoulders as Bucky pulls away with a clearing of his throat.

“Enough emotions,” Bucky says, shaking his head and downing the rest of his beer. “Let’s check out this boat you built, see if she actually floats.”

Steve is left staring at the dock as Bucky walks away. It’s jarring, hearing words in the light of day that he’d heard over and over in his dreams the past few months. He feels like he did exactly that. He left a man behind. He glances up at the sky.

“Do you think he forgives me, Mama?” he asks quietly.

“Oi, Rogers! I’m not pulling this goddamn boat in by myself!” Bucky shouts and Steve blinks, the moment lost as he turns to jog after Bucky. “When are you gonna name this beast, anyway?”

“Beast? The boat’s barely big enough for your big head,” Steve jibes, falling into schoolyard teasing to chase away the shadows. “And, I don’t know. I haven’t found a name that feels right yet.”

They’re half in the water with Bucky laughing uproariously after Steve slips and soaks himself to the chest when there’s a polite cough and a woman’s voice.

“Excuse me, gentlemen? I’m looking for Mr. Steven Rogers.”

They both look over and Bucky whistles low and only for Steve’s ears.

“Dibs.”

~~~

Steve waits for Bucky to slide into the booth first, taking his place beside his friend as the woman, Natasha, slides in across from them. A waiter swings by their table to drop off laminated menus and forks, says he’ll be right back with them, and darts off with a tray to another table.

The diner isn’t too busy. Natasha had said they shouldn’t meet somewhere crowded. Tony doesn’t do well in crowds yet, even after a year.

Tony.

Steve feels tightness in his chest. Tony has been around people long enough to get a nickname. Tony has therapists-turned-friends and is taken care of and loved and Steve missed it all. Steve had had no right to it. He scrubs a hand through his hair and doesn’t miss Natasha’s careful gaze. Bucky is determinedly reading over the cheap menu like he’s actually thinking of ordering something.

Steve knows he’s just distracting himself. Bucky’s frustrated that the whack job-turned-multi billionaire is still affecting Steve’s life, especially when he’d just started to get back on his feet.

“Thank you for coming with me, Mr. Rogers,” Natasha says after they place their drink orders and the waiter jets away again. “But I’ll be upfront right now. I agree with Mr. Barnes. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Steve ignores Bucky’s triumphant glance.

“Then why did you find me?” Steve wonders, lacing his fingers together atop the table and squeezing against his nervousness.

“Tony wants to see you,” Natasha shrugs, deceptively casual. She smiles and briefly thanks the waiter as her soda is placed in front of her.

“Are you ready to order?” he asks, setting down Steve and Bucky’s drinks.

“No, thank you,” Steve says. “We’ll need a bit. We’ll let you know.”

The waiter smiles, the expression the dead-forced of a diner worker, and leaves again. Natasha sips her soda absently, chewing on the straw. “I don’t agree with it,” she continues. “I think it’s a step back. He has a lot of buried anger towards you. Now, I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault. We all know that, but Tony doesn’t. Well, didn’t. He gets it now, but it’s rooted. He was very bitter in the beginning and I think he’s done an amazing job of burying it the past couple of months.”

“Wait, go back,” Steve says, clutching his glass tightly as Bucky heaves a sigh and places his chin in his hand. “He blames me? Blames me for what?”

But Steve thinks he knows what and that familiar guilt curdles in his stomach. Natasha’s right, though. It’s not his fault. Who on Earth would truly blame him? Before Natasha can answer the question, Steve’s already shaking his head.

“I left him there,” Steve murmurs, reliving the scene in his head. “I thought… I thought he needed help. I thought he was lost or-or on drugs, you know? It all happened so quickly. But it’s… That’s the way he sees it, isn’t it?”

“That’s not fair, Steve,” Bucky growls. “He wasn’t your responsibility then and he’s not now.”

“Again, I agree with you, Mr. Barnes,” Natasha inclines her head and Bucky flushes a little and straightens in the booth. “He feels you took him from the only home he knew. You took him from his family. You took him and then you left him behind.

“But I’ve seen the work you’ve done over the years and the people you’ve helped and the lives you’ve saved. I know that you would’ve done whatever you could have to help him if you’d been able.”

Steve rubs a hand over his face, leaves it over his eyes as he braces the elbow on the table.

“I couldn’t stay,” and his voice sounds wretched, but he can’t do anything about that.

“I saw the obituary,” Natasha says gently, quietly, and Steve thinks he might break something if she gives him those meaningless platitudes that so many people spill from their lips. He can’t honestly take that right now. “And that sucks. I know what it’s like to have your world ripped away.”  Natasha’s expression goes dark for a moment and Steve glances at Bucky who only shrugs slightly.

“And that’s why I’m a little leery of you meeting with Tony now,” she says after the brief pause. Her gaze is determined as she meets Steve’s. “You’re barely adjusted. You’ve quit your job, sold your home, dropped off the grid. I just don’t think you’re stable enough to not dra-“

“Now, just wait a damn minute,” Bucky presses the palm of his hand to the table. Steve exhales slowly, hand sliding into his hair. “You’ve got no right to come in here and attack my friend because your client was a monkey for his whole life. I don’t care how rich that asshole is now or whatever the fuck he thinks is going to come out of this, but Steve’s a good guy. He’s the best of us, actually. He’s had a shit year and he doesn’t deserve to be told he’s too ‘unstable’ to handle your kid-glove millionaire brat.”

There’s a silence at the table following Bucky’s quick inhale and harsh exhale. Natasha is staring at him and Steve has his eyes closed in resignation.

“Very well,” Natasha responds after a moment and Steve opens his eyes as the booth creaks, signaling that she’s standing up. “I’ll let him know that we couldn’t find you. It’ll be better than him being le-“

“Please,” Steve’s voice cracks and he has his hand around her wrist, preventing her from walking away. “Please. I just… How is he? I’ve-I’ve looked in the papers, but the articles don’t really cover much anymore. I just want to know how he’s doing. Is he… Is he going to be okay?”

Natasha’s expression softens minutely and she pulls out her phone, using her free hand to type out a quick text.  “See for yourself.” She smirks slightly.

A few moments later, two men are walking into the diner. One is much taller and very muscled. That must be the other therapist, Steve thinks, before the other man captures his entire focus.

Tony looks... Tony looks good and Steve feels a weight lift from his shoulders. He looks healthy, standing straight with his shoulders hunched only slightly. He might be nervous or uncomfortable too. It’s surreal, Steve thinks, seeing Tony in clothes; even something simple as the jeans and hoodie he’s wearing. The hood rests far back on his head, barely held up by the black sunglasses sitting against them.

Steve is standing now and he doesn’t remember getting out of the booth, but he’s standing and Bucky is sliding over. Time stops as the other tall blond points and says something too low for Steve to hear, but then Tony is looking at Steve and his breath is catching because his face is the same. The skin is still darkly-tanned, the scar still across his mouth even though this new goatee –in exchange for the beard, Steve guesses- covers it like the old.

The eyes, though. Steve can’t look away from Tony’s eyes, still captured by the brown even as they widen.

They start walking towards each other. Steve barely notices the slightly awkward gait Tony carries because, as soon as they’re close enough, Tony is tilting his head back and wetting his lips with a pass of his tongue. Steve’s too dazed to say anything. He’s staring. They’re both staring. He can hear Natasha introducing Bucky and the other man, but it fades as Tony smiles widely.

“Steve.”

Steve’s heart skips a beat just as Tony’s fist connects with his nose.

~~~

Steve stumbles back, starbursts blooming in his vision with the unexpected impact. He overbalances, hitting the booth next to him and gets his feet tangled up with Tony’s. They fall and he grunts, feeling Tony’s hands fist in his shirt as he blinks dazedly up at the diner’s ceiling. He reaches past Tony’s head to prod gently at his own face, wincing at the pain.

“No!” Tony shouts and Steve can’t quite blink the spots away just yet, but he realizes someone’s trying to pry Tony off of him. He immediately wraps his arms around Tony then realizes that Tony’s shaking, tremors holding his muscles tense where they’re pressed together.

“Do not put your hands on him,” Thor says and he’s pulling Bucky away from Steve and Tony. Steve should probably get up and help diffuse the situation, but he doesn’t want to let go of Tony.

“Put him down, Thor,” Natasha is saying and Steve can hear Bucky swearing as Thor releases his arms. “I did say it was a bad idea.”

“You didn’t say he was going to attack him!” Bucky accuses, jabbing a finger in Natasha’s direction. Thor settles between them, crossing his arms.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks Tony quietly, ignoring everything else for the moment. Tony stiffens and refuses to lift his head from Steve’s chest, but gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Right, okay then.

Despite the hot pain in his face and watering eyes, he’s pretty sure Tony didn't manage to break his nose so Steve levers himself up, forcing Tony into a sitting position. He glances up and the few lingering patrons are watching with unconcealed curiosity. The manager is now speaking to Natasha and it’s clear that he wants them to leave. They’re blocked from view as Bucky moves to crouch down. Ignoring Tony, Bucky grabs Steve’s chin and tilts his face this way and that in inspection.

“Doesn’t look broken,” Bucky mutters and there’s a very audible growl coming from Tony, but Bucky only curls his lip. “Oh, get over yourself. I’m just making sure you didn’t do any lasting damage.”

“Let go,” Tony says. The words are muffled, but Steve hears them loud and clear and it’s like music, honestly. He breathes carefully through his mouth and finds himself wanting to grin widely as Bucky drops his hand and stands back up. His friend rolls his eyes and crosses his arms as he watches Steve.

“Wipe that stupid look off your face,” Bucky grunts.

Steve can’t help it. His smile brightens a bit more as he looks down at the top of Tony’s head. The throbbing of his nose is noticeable.

“You can understand me now,” and God, he sounds like he found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What’s wrong with him?

“Why don’t we continue this somewhere else?” Natasha asks, turning her back on the manager. “Or at least outside. Tony, you don’t want to cause more of a scene, do you?”

Tony shakes his head and pushes back from Steve’s chest. He doesn’t look at Steve as Thor helps him to his feet, but as soon as Steve is standing, one of his hands is fisted in Steve’s shirt again.

“Sorry,” Tony says evenly, avoiding his gaze. “I am… Sorry. I feel happy.”

Steve covers Tony’s hand and squeezes lightly.

“It’s okay,” he says honestly. God, that’s the honest truth. “Let’s go talk, okay?”

And that’s how they end up back at Steve’s cabin.

Bucky and Thor are down at the edge of the lake, talking about Steve’s boat, and Natasha is up on the porch, playing with her phone as she keeps an eye on Tony.

Steve watches Tony closely. The man is standing at the end of the dock, head tilted back to watch a flock of geese go over the lake. They haven’t spoken since the diner and Steve is beginning to feel nervous again. He abandons his boots at the beginning of the dock and strides down to the end where Tony is.

Tony is radiating heat and Steve finds it hard not to lean into it. He manages it by bending over to roll his pants legs up. He feels Tony shift, sees him move slightly as he captures Tony’s attention.

“Steve. What?”

Steve wants to hear him keep talking. He has a feeling that path could get ridiculously Pavlovian if Tony had the mindset for it.

“Just dunking my legs,” he replies, turning his face to smile at Tony as he sits down on the edge and drops his bare legs and feet into the water. Tony inhales sharply, head cocking to the side like he’s trying to figure it out. And for all Steve knew, he was. Natasha had said that Tony’s made great progress, but stemming from nothing, it could be just be little things.

Tony starts to crouch and Thor gives a low whistle. Tony’s gaze darts up and he flushes before straightening again.

“Old habits?” Steve wonders, squinting up at Tony.

“Yes,” Tony answers quickly, like it’s a question he’s run into more than once. “I want to dunk. Steve. With you.”

“Here, take your shoes off,” Steve says, leaning over a little to roll up Tony’s pants. He swallows, feeling like such a small thing like this is too intimate, but Tony toes out of his shoes with startling focus as Steve draws his fingers away. Then he’s carefully guiding himself down in a practiced motion. He settles next to Steve and they both watch as he dunks his legs, sending ripples into the water. Their shoulders brush and rest against each other. Tony kicks his feet in the water and Steve smiles. 

His heart is so full in that moment, he thinks it might burst.


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This epilogue was written by Kitty_Kinneas.

It was tricky, for a while, trying to figure out how to make things work, especially once Tony discovered the reason he’d always been so good with tools, and re-discovered his true genius for engineering. Now when Steve reflects on it, it seems like it should have always been simple. Or maybe it always was and they just didn’t realize it.

Every few weeks, they come up here, and Steve works on his boats and Tony rests, out of the public eye. They always stay at least two weeks, and the press stopped asking questions a long while ago about where they disappeared to, learning fast it was out of bounds.

Currently, Steve is humming along with some new tune on the radio as he hangs over the edge of his latest order, painting the prow with long, even strokes of primer, preparing her for her real paint job.

“Looks good,” comes Tony’s voice and Steve looks up, grinning a little.

He’s ambling over, crouched, balanced lightly on his knuckles. Thor taught Steve how to whistle when Tony reverted, but here Steve often lets him be. It doesn’t matter, and besides, he likes the way it flexes the muscles down the other man’s powerful arms. He’s even had the courtesy not to wear a shirt, but only a pair of loose, soft sweatpants.

“It’s primer, monkey-man. It doesn’t look good, it just is.”

Tony’s smile is slick.

“Oh, I was not talking about the boat,” he replies.

Steve laughs, finishing off the panel he’s working on and jumping down from the boat.

“Oh, you weren’t? Are you ogling me?”

Tony frowns a little, his mouth shaping the unfamiliar word. It’s been nearly six months since the diner, eighteen since he left the jungle, but there are still a lot of words for him to discover.

“Uh, it means… looking…? Like… examining, but… with intent?” Steve tries. Tony looks even more confused. “Uh, like this.”

He demonstrated, sweeping his eyes deliberately down Tony’s frame and back up again, tongue briefly damping his lower lip.

“Hm. Yes. Ogling. I was doing that,” Tony decides, grinning.

Steve plants his hands on his hips, grinning from ear to ear as well.

“So was I,” he admits.

Tony closes the distance between them, climbing up from his crouch hand-over-hand up Steve’s frame and into his space. One hand is up his tank top in the process, and he finishes with his nose in Steve’s hair, a soft string of grunts issuing from his throat.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Steve reminds him, his own hand cupping around Tony’s back, fingertips dipping into the small of his back.

“Does it matter?” Tony wonders.

“That depends. Was it kind?”

“Oh… very,” is the throaty reply, almost a purr.

Sometimes, Tony’s English is still a little fractured, but something he mastered with near immediacy was intonation and modulation. Steve supposes that comes from speaking in varied grunts for much of his life and Tony’s natural intelligence lending him the ability to apply it to words.

“Then I suppose it doesn’t matter, but I do like to hear the kind things you say about me.”

Tony smirks and murmursagainst Steve’s ear, the blond giving a low, throaty laugh.

“That isn’t kind, Tony. That’s positively lecherous.”

“Oh, sorry. Still struggling with manners,” Tony replies, grinning at him. The hand inches higher. “And personal space.”

Steve slides his hand down past Tony’s behind to his thigh, hitching him up. Naturally, Tony has no difficulty wrapping his legs around Steve’s waist and holding himself there.

“Should I teach you some? Manners, I mean?” Steve wonders.

Tony nuzzles at his throat and ear, equal parts grunting and murmuring agreements.

“Thor would kill me if he knew how much I let you get away with,” Steve says, supporting Tony’s weight only a little as he heads back towards the cabin.

“Thor can go fuck himself,” Tony growls.

“Now that wasn’t kind,” Steve replies, kicking open the door.

“I am kind only to you, Leader,” Tony whispers, his legs and arms still locked around Steve as the blond lays him back on the bed and stretches out over him.

“As you should be,” is Steve’s low reply, and though it might stay secret from the entire world, they both know he loves to gradually strip Tony of every phrase, word and manner he’s re-learnt, reducing him once again to grunts and whines and gestures.

\- - - - - - -

Later, Tony lies curled against Steve, his fingers tracing absently at pectorals and abs. He’s making little sounds Steve knows mean calmness and safety and happiness and the blond knows he should stop him, but he can’t find a reason. It’s only the two of them, and Tony never slips up in public any more.

Steve brushes his fingers through Tony’s hair.

“Do you miss them?” he asks softly.

Tony doesn’t ask who he means. He’s silent for a few long moments.

“Yes,” he says eventually. “And I have thought a lot that I can go back. But then I think more, and realize… I cannot go back.”

“You could,” Steve says. “You can easily afford the trip.”

“Yes,” Tony agrees. “But I am not… the same. I do not want to go back to that self. The self that… does not understand you.”

His hands come up, tracing the lines of Steve’s face.

“You are lonely without me.”

Steve swallows. Tony’s completely right. He had been managing after his mother’s passing, but not living. Not until Tony came back into his life.

“But… if you miss them-”

Tony puts a finger to Steve’s mouth.

“They would not know me now and my brother was gone. You are the one I would mostly miss if I go back. This is home. This is safety.”

Steve smiles past the burning in his throat and hugs Tony to him, fingers curling into his hair.

“I’d miss you too. So much I’d have to come with you and learn to be an ape.”

Tony laughs against his chest.

“You will make a terrible ape. So loud and clumsy.”

Steve laughs as well.

“Then, it’s lucky you make such a good man.”

“You make me a good man, Steve.”

“No. That comes naturally. I’m just lucky enough to love so good a man.”

Tony is silent for a long moment, after a fashion, though soft ape-sounds bubble in his throat. Eventually, he says; “I love you, too.”


End file.
